Provincial Election

Saskatchewan is in the closing days of a provincial election. The campaign has been low-key, and the pundits have already proclaimed the electoral success of Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party. The Liberals have imploded and the Greens are frantically playing catch-up with a new leader, Victor Lau. The former NDP powerhouse is widely predicted to be approaching its worst electoral results in decades, and its leader Dwain Lingenfelter has been the object of Harper-style attack ads by the Sask Party brain trust.

Into this context, some genuine policy discussion has been offered, though it has been poorly framed by both politicians and its codependent media.

Don't

Regarding the NDP platform's reliance on additional potash revenue, columnist Murray Mandryk asks, "What if potash tanks as it did in 2009?"

Of course, budgets are necessarily based on assumptions about future commodity prices. Saskatchewan Finance estimates that each dollar of change in the price of oil alters provincial revenues by $20 million (page 35). So, if a barrel of oil is $10 cheaper than projected, the future surpluses needed to fund the Sask Party platform would evaporate.

Saskatchewan's two major parties have unveiled their election platforms.

The NDP's fiscal plan is to collect higher potash royalties and reinvest the proceeds in public priorities like health care, education and housing. Columnist Murray Mandryk notes the spectre of Erin Weir.

The NDP has expressed a willingness to discuss sharing resource revenues with First Nations. The Sask Party criticizes the NDP for not costing this possibility.

Don't

After a strong performance in the Ontario leaders' debate last week, provincial NDP leader Andrea Horwath has kept up momentum by traveling around the province, letting voters know that her party represents change for Ontarians. She told rabble.ca in an interview on Sunday about what shape some of those changes will take.

Meg Borthwick: Ontario NDP support went up in the polls immediately following the debate. It must be very gratifying to know that you stand on your own, that this has not a whole lot to do with increasing support at the federal level.

In every leaders' debate, everyone watching is looking for the zinger -- the moment when an important question is asked and one of the participants stands there with his or her mouth open, with nothing to say.

It doesn't always happen. But it happened to Tim Hudak in the Ontario election leader's debate on Tuesday night, when he was challenged on the $10 billion hole in is platform's budget and he had nothing to say.

If Tuesday's Ontario leader's debate was a poker game, the player with the biggest bluff to carry off was Conservative leader Tim Hudak -- a gamble that he would not be called to account for the astonishingly large cuts in public services on which his platform's fiscal viability depends.

For interested Yellowknife Voters, students and all Canadians who want to learn more about the politics of the Northwest Territories, Status of Women Council of the NWTs held an All Yellowknife Candidates Forum on September 26, 7 p.m., at Northern United Place. http://www.statusofwomen.nt.ca/

Despite living in Winnipeg, working in the local media and even canvassing door-to-door for NDP candidates, I can't call next Tuesday's vote.

Manitoba NDP leader Greg Selinger has run a good, gaffe-free campaign emphasizing the government's key accomplishments -- low unemployment, strong public services and a decent economy. Selinger turned in a solid performance at the televised leaders' debate and even master-minded Harper-style attack ads, accusing the opposition Conservatives of a hidden agenda to privatize public utilities.